Curiosity in Fandom: Plot Holes, Unpopular Opinions, Rewatches, and Academia
For fans who love to ask questions
It’s May, a month full of both beginnings and endings. May always makes me think of season finales and a looming hiatus. Before streaming culture, network television seasons were broken up into two halves. The fall lineups would start in September with new shows and returning favorites, and break just before the holidays. After the new year, the spring would offer mid-season replacement shows and premieres. A season of TV would end, culminating in series cliffhangers and finales. We would have the whole summer to speculate on how our favorite shows would come back in the fall. Three long months to think about future character arcs and plot lines, or speculate about cliffhangers and the mysteries we were left with to wonder about. And that fascination is what kept us sustained.
That feeling has now been democratized to every season; with streaming we are always waiting for one thing while enjoying another and looking forward to something else. And while that’s in a lot of ways more exciting, May still feels like a time to wrap things up as we prepare for the summer and future seasons. With that in mind, we think you’ll love our content topic for this month.
Before we tell you what our May theme is, let’s take a look back at what you may have missed during April. Our content theme was Fanfare, where we took a deeper look at how we build excitement around the stories we love.
Anticipation is an art form when done well, and we took a look at how the waiting period for a movie or TV show to be available is often one of the best parts of fandom. One big movie release that we couldn’t wait for this year? Project Hail Mary, based on the book of the same name by Andy Weir. This led us to ask the question: is the book always better than the movie? The answer is complicated.
Looking at the Gilmore Girls fandom, we tracked the rise of fan festivals, as folks who have found fandom online grow tired of only using social media to connect with other fans. We also considered what happens to a lonely fan that cannot find a fandom community, and how they might find positives and negatives in the solitude.
In May, we’re channeling that vibe of speculation when it comes to season finales that this time of year has been known for in the past. Our topic is…Curiosity! If you participate in fandom by asking questions, analyzing plot details, and looking for clues, this month is for you. We’ll look at how multiple rewatches of TV shows and movies inspire new understandings of content. We’ll investigate why plot holes really stick in our brains and affect how we watch. With fandom making appearances on college campuses, we’ll look at the academic approach to fandom content. And we’ll dig deep on why unpopular opinions can be so fun to have, share, and discuss.
So bring your notebooks and pencils, and get ready to examine storyworld content closely. Sometimes to love something is to investigate it from multiple angles!
Take note of our Table of Contents below. Make sure to follow us on Instagram, and also John Cabrera for special announcements and reflections. You can always find more information on our Discord where we post regular updates about the Remarkist ecosystem. We have some big things coming up, and you won’t want to miss it!
Plot Holes
By: Diana Franco
The Obsessive Rewatch
By: Diana Franco
Unpopular Opinions
By: Diana Franco
Fandom in Academia
By: Diana Franco
